PEORIA — The farm-to-table movement, a trend that took root in major cities several years ago, is creeping into the Peoria restaurant market.

Several chefs and business owners in the area have made it a priority to support nearby family-owned farms — not just for the environmental and economic benefits, they say, but because the food tastes better when it is grown and harvested close to home.

“Chefs are really respecting the product and celebrating the food,” said Golda Ewalt, a chef and registered dietitian at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center. “If it’s local and in season, it’s going to be the tastiest you can find. Think of an apple you get in January versus one picked fresh from the orchard. You can’t beat it.”

Shelley Lenzini, who owns Rhythm Kitchen, has purchased produce locally since she opened 15 years ago.

“When I opened, one guy would come by with his truck and I would buy whatever I needed. But it was just too early for people to grasp that,” said Lenzini, who now deals with multiple farmers and also shops the farmer’s markets to add everything from local kale to asparagus to her menu.

“(The local movement) has been coming for the last five years, and it’s really strong this year,” Lenzini said. “A lot of (sellers) have approached me.”

A major player in the local farm-to-table movement recently stepped away from the restaurant business — Chef Josh Adams in March closed June restaurant in Peoria Heights to pursue other ventures. But he left his mark on the area.

“A chef of his caliber, the more involved he was, the more that movement is possible,” said chef Dustin Allen, who runs Edge restaurant at Junction City. “He started filling out the supply chains more. Farmers are starting to see there are outlets for it.”

Wild edibles

Allen said about 90 percent of the food he sells at Edge is sourced locally, with the exception of seafood and some beef. He spends up to five hours a day ordering supplies from about 50 farms in the region, from Spence Farm in Fairbury, to Garden Spot Vegetable Farm in Princeville and Hartz Produce in Wyoming.

Eating locally for Allen also means taking a page from the cookbooks and survivalist manuals of centuries past. His menu, which changes daily, regularly includes wild edibles collected by farmers — morels, wild arugula, leeks, garlic mustard, mulberries, wild violet. He recently used the tips of a spruce tree — which impart “a citrus burst” — to make a bearnaise sauce for beef tenderloin.

Page 2 of 3 - “Three or four generations back, they knew what was edible and could live off it. Bringing that back has been a really neat venture, to push the envelope a little bit,” he said. “It helps having a group of farms that are very in tune with the area and the land.”

A multitude of suppliers

Joan Ditmer, who runs Maxine’s on Main in Morton and who previously completed an internship at June restaurant, had to go to Chicago to discover the gems of the region. While visiting a Whole Foods in Chicago, she discovered goat cheese and sheep’s milk cheese from Prairie Fruit Farms and Creamery in Champaign.

“People who don’t love chevre always love their chevre,” she said.

Her menu also includes eggs from a farm in Mackinaw, and produce from Hartz Produce in Wyoming and Living Earth Farms near Trivoli. She purchases seedlings known as microgreens from Living Water Farms in Strawn, northwest of Bloomington. The farm grows produce hydroponically in the winter.

Word of these small farms is spread by Stewards of the Land, a Fairbury-based group dedicated to training and assisting farmers to make a living in ways other than through large-scale production of crops like corn and soybeans. The group was formed in 2005.

“In the last 10 years we’ve seen hundreds of small farms crop up here in central Illinois,” said founder Marty Travis, who also runs Spence Farm. “It’s a testament to an educated public who are asking for these things.”

Travis said the farmer-chef relationship is one of mutual respect.

“The chefs find it much more fun and fascinating to get cool stuff from farms, and they make better farmers out of us by saying, ‘Can you grow Mexican gherkin cucumbers?’ We think that we’re helping the chefs to create something super special for their guests, too,” he said.

‘More than fast food’

Josh Lanning, head chef of Harvest Cafe in Delavan who previously worked at June restaurant, invites farmers in for dinner before the start of the growing season. They bring seed catalogs and talk about his wish list for the coming year. It’s a gentleman’s agreement of sorts; Lanning asks them to grow specific products and in return he follows through by buying them when harvest comes.

“That’s the great thing. The whole relationship is about trust. At the end of he day, I’d be able to tell you the son, daughter and great aunt of the family who grew this for me, and that’s what’s important.”

Page 3 of 3 - Wintertime, however, is a struggle. Lanning said he relies on root vegetables, grains, and fruits that have been frozen the prior season. This year, they are working on storing vegetables in a cellar to offer even more local food throughout the bleak months.

Lanning, who grew up in Peoria, left for the French Culinary Institute in 2005.

“When I left, there was nothing here but chain restaurants, and the farmer’s markets weren’t like they are now,” said Lanning, who is happy to see the area begin to embrace sustainable agriculture.

“Moving away was an eye-opening experience; you realize there’s more than fast food and cans of food,” he said. “Peoria is always three or four years behind, but I think people are going to start seeing the value in it.”

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As Peoria restaurants embrace the farm-to-table movement, Childers Eatery staff is serving produce they grow right on site.

Behind the 3312 N. University St. location are 2,000 square feet of raised beds that support a variety of produce, from strawberries and lettuce to beets and carrots.

“We’re the only restaurant in this town that has a garden in their backyard, 15 feet from the back door,” said co-owner Ed Childers.

After a busy day of serving breakfast and lunch, the evening hours call for weeding, watering and harvesting. Co-owner Ryan Childers, who oversees the gardens, has battled frost, and rabbits that amble through in plain view of the gardeners. But it’s satisfying to see the tiny plants that he started from seed grow into fully harvested vegetables. And Childers says he thinks customers appreciate the effort.

“A lot of people think of us as a breakfast restaurant, but we’re doing a lot more than that.”

Childers plans to start “pop-up dinners” to profile vegetables from the garden bounty, which includes asparagus, brussels sprouts, peppers, melon, raspberries and blackberries, along with heirloom tomatoes and six varieties of radishes. Childers says he’s currently building more beds to add edible flowers — marigolds, violas, pansies — for salads and as garnishes for soup.

“I felt like we needed to do something with (the space) other than plant shrubs,” Childers said. “I don’t claim to be garden-to-table, but I grow things I can’t get from anyone else.”

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Danielle Hatch can be reached at 686-3262 or dhatch@pjstar.com. Follow her on Twitter @danielle_hatch.